Last week’s primaries generated lots of food for thought and discussion, not to mention argument. That said, I found one race–in the Red state of Iowa–especially intriguing, because Rob Sand, the Democrat running for governor, has focused on the issue of vouchers.
Chalkbeat has the story.
A Democrat in an increasingly red state, Sand is aggressively campaigning against the state’s education savings account, or ESA, program, which passed in 2023. The state now provides publicly funded vouchers for families to pay for private-school tuition and expenses.
Sand–who styles himself a fiscal hawk– points out that the voucher program is siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars from Iowa’s public schools. He is emphasizing the importance of oversight and the absence of such oversight from Iowa’s program. He also criticises the lack of income limits to the program–a feature of Indiana’s equally wasteful voucher program. Sand says that “when you allow private schools to take public money but reject students, then you actually haven’t promoted school choice because the school is the one that gets to make the choice.” He reiterates that he wants public oversight over public money, and his arguments appear to be resonating with Iowa voters.
Iowa isn’t the only state with deeply unsatisfactory public control over a voucher program. Last December, The Washington Post published a report on Florida’s voucher program–a report headlined as a “cautionary tale.” Florida, like Indiana and Iowa, allows any family in the state to get a taxpayer-funded school voucher regardless of income. Enrollment in Florida’s voucher program is nearly half a million children.
Florida’s auditor general has found “a myriad of accountability challenges.”
By the end of the 2024-25 school year, the program cost $398 million more than expected, according to a recently released report from Florida’s auditor general. And when students switched between public schools and voucher-funded programs, tax dollars did not move with them as lawmakers had promised.
On any given day, Florida’s education department did not know where 30,000 students were going to school and could not account for the $270 million in taxpayer funds it took to support them, according to the state Senate Appropriations Committee on Pre-K-12 Education…
“This money was money the school districts should have received and never did until this all came to light,” said Norín Dollard, senior policy analyst and Kids Count director at the Florida Policy Institute, a think tank that has been critical of vouchers. “Maybe that could have been some more teachers, it could have been enhanced curriculum. It couldn’t happen because the funds were not there to do it.”
The issue of accountability is important, but as I have frequently reported on this blog, it is hardly the only problem with these programs. One issue of concern is the fact that the private schools accepting these tax dollars are overwhelmingly religious, and a significant portion of them teach versions of fundamentalist Christianity.
In 2021, an investigation by Huffpost found that textbooks used in a majority of Christian schools delivered what you might call a “curated”(i.e. skewed) history, and taught that contemporary America is experiencing “an urgent moral decline that can only be fixed by conservative Christian policies.” The analysis found that language used in the books “overlaps with the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, often with overtones of nativism, militarism and racism as well.”
Research also fails to support claims that voucher schools improve student outcomes. Despite lots of rhetoric, most academic studies of school voucher programs find that the only area of improvement is in parental satisfaction. Even in well-run programs, student performance remains where one would expect based upon a variety of sociological factors. Reports about rising test scores tend, upon further inquiry, to be based on the ability of private schools to eject students who aren’t making the grade.
We Americans have a love affair with easy answers. We also tend to believe that–whatever the task–private enterprises will outperform governmental ones. We also have a tendency to think that change equals improvement. Unfortunately, solving real-world problems requires analysis. Sometimes, there actually is an easy answer; sometimes, a private entity is better suited to solve a certain problem. Sometimes, change is warranted–and positive.
Sometimes, not so much.
I’m rooting for Rob Sand.
The public is woefully ignorant about vouchers and charter schools. Even parents who are receiving this subsidy (stop calling them scholarships because scholarship presupposes a requirement of effort) and who send their kids to charter schools are not interested in the details. Show me the money or let me put my kid in a charter school. Vouchers have been like the frog on the bathwater that is increasing in temperature…the frog being public schools. There is a presumption that private or charter are always better than public schools. Ok, let’s say they are. Let’s assume there is some secret sauce to them that public schools don’t have. Then what is it? As a person who started teaching in 1971 but left in 1976 only to return to teaching in 1996 (in between I practiced law and other stuff), I’ll tell you what changed: expectations for student behavior and an attitude toward the teaching profession-diminished respect for teachers. I am not commenting about changes in curriculum except to say that Madelein O’Hare championed no prayer in school and now years later there is this shift in praying and pushing Christian doctrine. The movement of “choice” is not even thinly disguised as a movement to break up public schools now referred to as “government schools” by voucher/charter advocates. What do we do now that the frog is dying or shall I use a different metaphor – the horse is out of the barn-?
Apparently, state legislatures dole out the money without the accountability. Then again…that would be working.
In a red state, it’s okay to use tax dollars to send wealthy families kids to private, religious schools. But not to help sick, injured people. Their employers won’t pay a decent wage and provide good insurance? Let them suffer. Really pro life.
Linda,
Your comments about disrespecting teachers is all too accurate. In the final analysis, though, we get what we pay for, and we don’t pay our college-educated teachers the professional salary they deserve. That said, imagine how the teacher recruitment environment would look if starting salaries matched those of starting business people, engineers, etc.
But that idealism won’t happen. Mr & Mrs. Jones will happily write thousand-dollar checks to send darling Suzie to cheerleader camp, but will scream bloody murder if they have to pay another $12 a month to pay for school supplies. Priorities.
In my book, “Saving the Seed Corn”, I discuss in great detail from extensive research the solutions to our failing and declining public schools. In short: The voucher “systems” are nothing more than cash grabs by right-wing ideologues who want to exploit the taxpayer while “legitimizing” the teaching of their political agenda.
Pay the teachers and watch what happens. Oh. Voucher school teachers don’t get paid more that public school teachers and in some cases, less.
Do you mean “accountability” as to what Kristen Welker gave to DJT in an Iowa barn? Well, as I’ve said, Republicans melt down under the slightest form of criticism. I am sure that is why Trump/Musk eliminated all the existing lawsuits against Big Tech, fired inspector generals, and flushed anybody who would provide even the slightest evaluation.
“Republican leadership” is an oxymoron.
Every Red State that I’ve been involved with has rigged the entire public access structure from top to bottom. Journalism in today’s world doesn’t demand anything from the Republicans in charge, and the political parties have almost no respect for them because they know that access to the White House or statehouse is demanded from the media’s management. If you hold them accountable, you are off the invite list – career-ending for a beat reporter.
At the federal level, it’s just ignored. When I see clips of press conferences, the questions asked are embarrassing to this fellow journalist. It’s called ass-kissing and schmoozing.
Every time a real journalist slips through the cracks and asks a tough question, security immediately whisks in to remove that person from the room. If a camera is rolling, no surprises allowed – it’s completely stage-managed.
As for Iowa, I just read an article about California’s Prop 12, which targets the food industry, especially the use of caged animals. Not only does the law target farmers inside CA, but it also extends beyond the Golden State borders. If you want to sell your product to Californians, no caged animals. It would seem that Californians do give a shit where their food comes from. “Well, we cannot have the people dictating where their food comes from!! What else will they demand? How far will they take this?”
That was the mentality of the Iowa farmer interviewed. LOL Even though she admitted that her CAFO doesn’t sell to Cali. “It’s just not fair!”
This is how Republicans feel about democracy – “these people shouldn’t have input over their food. We must defeat these ballot measures!”
Republicans are going to do everything possible to prevent the people from acting like they have a voice. It doesn’t matter what the topic, when they’re in power, there is no stinkin democracy.
p.s. The first thing our local faux-republican council did this year was propose limits on how long the public could speak and when at a PUBLIC MEETING. This isn’t republicanism – it’s FASCISM.
Is the only reason people think government programs don’t work is because that is what they are told? And they just believe it? I worked for DFR for 30+ years. You can believe ME when I say, we were committed, dedicated and proud of the work we did feeding Indiana folks and making sure they got health coverage. There was not rampant fraud from clients. That was on the provider side.
And Medicare and Social Security seem to have worked astonishingly well for a very long time.
I used to have a friend that sent her kids to Trinity Lutheran School. And that was the first time I discussed vouchers with anyone because it was just emerging. This was in 1987/88. And she thought vouchers were a great idea because even though the church/school had reduced her obligation with a scholarship, it was still a big stretch. And I told her I just didn’t understand why she thought anyone else should pay for her private decision regarding her kids schooling when we had public schools. I told her our tax money should not go to an institution where we had no say over what was being taught. And while she didn’t have any answer for me, she still thought it was “fair”. I can’t ask her what she thinks now because we aren’t friends. I do not see that her children benefited any more from private church school than what mine got in Indy township schools. Vernon is correct. Pay teachers what they are worth. Set high standards. And watch what happens. Oh, and VOTE. Tell everybody you know to vote.
There’s nothing better for an autocracy than unqualified teachers, teaching claptrap. I’ve heard Orange Jesus say he likes stupid people. Why? Stupid people are more apt to buy the snake oil that he’s selling.
Voucher programs are a key part of a plan to keep the people under the influence of our Christian Nationalist brothers and sisters. Break out the pitchforks and torches the time is coming to stand for something.
VOTE!!!!
I was gone from Indiana when the Supreme Court upheld vouchers to religious schools. As I understand that decision, since the money was going to the parents there was no violation of the state constitution. Until we change who is running this state in all three branches, the state government will keep supporting the rich at the expense of everyone. I do not see this happening any time soon – for all I hope to be surprised come November.
Last night I was reading a law review article advocating an education that privileged the teaching of the virtues. Grossly under explaining, sorry. But the point was why do we not teach civics. I had to take a civics class in 1978. It seems we no longer require an understanding of our government.
One question I have had for a long time is why are we still stuck with a school system based on townships? Why not allow kids to attend any public school that they want? When I was a Senior at Anderson Highland, Russian was offered at Anderson HS. We could take that class even though it was in a different building (same district, though).
Thank you for your time.
Vern,
And here I thought that vouchers were a way for Republicans to stick it to teachers and their unions for supporting Democrats. That would mean teachers are “Satanic and Baby Killers.” The Evangelicals are afraid woke teachers might infect their kids with the “woke mind virus. Teach them how to be gay and question their gender.”
Hell, even Elon Musk tweets it out to his one million followers.
Elon even blamed the “woke mind virus” for turning his son into a daughter. Even the “brightest” among these people are ignorant.
Vouchers were the original tool of racism going back to Brown v. Board in 1954. It is still a tool of exclusion and entitlement. No income limits flies in the face of the supposed original intent of assisting poorer families in finding schools with the same standards, amenities and opportunities as wealthy parents.
It has all been a front for racism and the privatization of all public services.
The language in the state Constitution seems pretty clear but I do not have a law degree. It seems the courts have taken the idea of “originalism” only when it fits their ideology. When the majority of the State Supreme Court justices are appointed by ideologues themselves (Daniels), we get what we voted for.
Is the opposite of “woke” “awake”, not asleep?
In indiana, it seems that the populace is generally sleep walking.
RESIST.
Research based quality education and qualified teachers are a priority in education. Back in the day many years ago, sitting through boring classes and given busy work seemed like a lot of wasted time and not evolving critical thinking skills. I hope curriculums today are more streamlined and the student /teacher ratio is set for optimum learning.
My 4-year-old granddaughter will enter an academy which is a Charter school for English and Spanish speaking children. There were vouchers last year that are no longer available, so they will pay 200. per week for her tuition. It’s important at that age in language development to immerse for fluency. This reminds me of the expense that catholic parents paid for multiple children back in the day.
I can only speak/write of what I know, so I can’t imagine the formative education being covered by the community and the effect on an inclusive mindset it has. Parents being pressured to put their children in the hands of an authoritarian church for their education is limiting. There are other ways to instill self-discipline and learning without fear methods. I’m glad that my daughter’s education was better than mine and that my grandchildren are happy in what they are learning. All children deserve an education that gives them a chance to succeed in their lives.